Venice Beach

While in LA, one of the mornings Young needed to drive his parents to the hospital to see their friends, so I took Timo and Cameron to hang out at the beach. Our hotel was just a few blocks away from Venice Beach so I grabbed a couple plastic bags from the room for seashells and off we went. The weather was beautiful! We kicked off our shoes, played in the sand, watched the waves, climbed so rocks, and hunted for seashells.


Timo found a shell that he could use as a shovel...then decided he wanted to dig a big whole and fill his bag with sand...while Cameron sat quietly for a while and just drew in the sand. What a different between my little boy and little girl.
Young left his mom to hang out with her best friend the rest of the day and met us back at the beach for lunch. Timo sure does love his pasta!
Later in the afternoon we all went back downtown to pick Mom up and have dinner with her friend and sons. It was so sweet to see Mom with her dear friend. When we arrived, they were arm and arm just smiling and soaking up their friendship. I'm so happy we decided to make the trip...seeing them together made all the hecticness and last minute planning worth it!

Guess where we've been...

While Young's parents were out here we decided to take a little trip down to Los Angeles. Mom's best friend and her husband moved from Ohio to LA last year to be closer to their two sons. They also happen to be the pastor of the church Mom went to. So we knew it would really bless Mom if she could see her friends again and be able to visit. We made all our plans and were all set to go when Dad came down with pneumonia two days before the trip. After spending a whole day in the ER with him, he was cleared to come home with lots of medications and told to rest. Mom called her friend that night to let her know we might not be coming, only to find out her husband, the Pastor, had just suffered a heart attack that day and was waiting on triple by-pass surgery the next morning! Wow, does the Lord ever work in amazing ways. This sealed our resolve to go to LA just so Mom could be with and comfort her friend during their time of need. We nursed Dad back to health, packed up our rented mini-van and headed south. Now, having said all of that, we know a hospital wasn't the place for kids so we planned a last minute day out with them at Disneyland while Mom and Dad went to visit their friends. (Praise God, the Pastor's surgery went well and he is on the mend)

The children were so excited to go to Disney, they were on their best behavior and we had a blast! We rode as many rides as we could, at as much junk food as possible and even got to meet Mickey, Tinkerbell and Woody!



Cameron brought her Baby Dumbo all the way from home to Disneyland so Baby Dumbo could ride in it's Mommy Dumbo car! Ah, the mind of a child...
Meeting all the characters was a bit of an ordeal. We waited in line 45mins, yes 45min, to meet Tinkerbell. Cameron was so excited, but once we got there, she was too shy to say hello and Timo wouldn't even come close. Then we waited about 15min to meet Mickey...Cameron was a little better but Timo was trying to hide. You can see me trying to pull him from behind the boat prop he was hiding behind.
After waving from afar to Minnie, Goofy and Donald Duck, Cameron was a little more brave and decided she wanted to shake Woody's hand..."just shake his hand Mommy , no hug."
We were able to see a little of the Parade and both Timo and Cameron was so excited to see Peter Pan (we had been looking for him all day) and Captain Hook.
Timo had been asking to ride the Nemo Submarine ride all day but the line had been around a 90mn wait every time we checked(we used our Disney Ride Wait Time app). I thought it might be a shorter wait while the parade was going on and thankfully it was...only 20min. But it was 7:30pm and the wheels were starting to come off the kids, if you know what I mean. It was a very long 20 minutes...
We knew it was time to make our exit after this last ride. Each one got to pick out one toy from the gift shop for being such good listeners all day. Timo picked out a Star Wars Lightsaber (all he talked about after watching a little Star Wars jedi training show) and Cameron picked out a Tinkerbell wand thing that spins. Thankfully the toys got us out of the park, to the bus and to our car without any meltdowns. (Timo tends to have a hard time leaving fun events.) This is the bus from the park to our car...9pm and still smiling!
I knew it they would be tired to I brought their jammies with us to change before we drove back to the hotel. They were asleep before we pulled out of the parking lot! What a day!!
We had to carry them from the car up to the hotel room, trying not to wake them. This pic was so sweet, I had to try and snap it even though I was holding a very sleepy Timo. Then Young had to lay Cameron on the hallway floor so he could open the room door...she wasn't even phased. Guess that's a sign of a good time had by all!

Underwear Man

I'm not sure if you have noticed, but about 80% of the pictures I post of Timo, he is in his underwear. My son does not like wearing pants and takes them off almost immediately when walking through the door. Thankfully he somewhat understands that you have to wear pants out in public, whew! (but that still doesn't stop him from asking every now and then.) Here are some random "underwear man" pics. His favorite is no clothes with just a few accessories...so I just turn up the heat in the house and let him play. And he's such a goof-ball...he constantly keep us laughing!

Teachable Moments & A Hike

The weather has been absolutely amazing this winter in San Francisco. We've been trying to get outside as much as we can on the weekends, so I planned a little nature walk one Saturday. We were all excited, loaded up in the car and started to pull out of the driveway. I reached back and handed the kids a little snack to tide them over till lunch and Cameron proceeded to tell me she didn't want the snack I packed her. Uh oh. Since we were already on our way, I kindly told her to eat what I had packed and we would get the snack she wanted when we got home. Apparently that wasn't a good enough answer for her. After going back and forth with her, trying to compromise, she still wasn't satisfied. Both Young and I then told her if she couldn't let it go and be happy with what she had and focus on how exciting out hike was going to be (not those words exactly, but spoken so a 3 year old would understand), then we were going to turn around and take her back home. After more of the same demands from her, we turned around and headed back. I felt really bad for her but knew it was one of those moments, once we drew the line in the sand, we had to dig our heels in and commit to the consequences of her actions. So...I stayed home with her, talking and explaining to her why she was missing the hike. She wasn't happy by any means but I feel she did understand that it was her actions that caused her dilemma, not Mommy and Daddy. We talked a long time, prayed together and then played a little until Daddy and Timo came home. At the time, I was really bummed that I had to miss out on the beautiful day and hike with Young and Timo but I'm honored to be the one to share those hard but sweet teachable moments with Cameron.

So on to the hike! Since Young isn't quite the crazy photographer that I am, he doesn't have many pics of their 1 1/2 mile walk...but here's what he did get...looks like it was beautiful walk and I know Timo LOVED having his Daddy all to himeself.

Sleeping Beauty--Ha!

I always like to post pictures of Cameron sleeping...she's such a crazy sleeper!

I love how she is wrapped up with her blankie and Wosie every night...can't sleep without them!

Hiking Stow Lake

We had an absolutely gorgeous day a few weeks ago, ironically during the kids' "winter break" at school. We just had to get outside and enjoy the sunshine and warm weather. What could be better than a nice hike around Stow Lake with our buddy Jasper! (yes, they are wearing white undershirts...I haven't sifted through their boxes yet to bring out summer clothes)
We started out by feeding the ducks...which got a little scary at one point when the seagulls started diving and trying to take the bread out of our hands!
All the kids had so much fun just running, jumping, climbing, picking up sticks, throwing rocks, etc...enjoying nature.




We took a little break at the Chinese pagoda in the middle of the lake. We had a hard time getting them to sit still for a group shot so I told them I would take a silly picture of them if they would give me a nice smile for the group one.
We finished up our hike with a fun picnic lunch...days like this I love living in the Bay Area!